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Husky Football Game vs. Stanford Helps to Call Attention to Pancreatic Cancer Month

Seattle - The Washington athletic department will use Saturday's home football game between the 11th-ranked Huskies and 10th-ranked Stanford to help draw attention to November as National Pancreatic Cancer month. The athletic department joins a national effort to focus on the disease and to encourage funding for more research into the causes, prevention and cure of pancreatic cancer.

During Saturday's game 30,000 purple ribbons will be distributed at entrance gates to fans attending the game. At halftime, the Husky marching band will form a ribbon on the field during its performance and a video presentation for National Pancreatic Cancer month will be played on the HuskyTron videoscreen.

Pancreatic cancer strikes more than 29,000 people a year in the United States. It has the highest fatality rate among cancers and is the fourth most fatal cancer in the nation. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is just three to six months and 99 percent of those diagnosed will die from the disease.

The University know first-hand the effects of this deadly disease. Two former Board of Regents recently succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Regent Andy Smith, who served from 1989 to 1995, and Regent Sam Stroum, who served from 1985 to 1998, both died from the disease.